Again ... ASN & HiFiTech unreachable

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In the month since I purchased ASN I've done about 8 flights. Preparing for 5 of them ASN has had problems downloading weather and at the same time the HiFiTech forums can't be reached. You may think this is coincidental but it's not. Each time ASN can't deliver wx information the HiFiTech forums are also unreachable. So there's nowhere to report problems except here. Today I've been trying to get a flight going for the past 3 hours and ASN is just plain stuck.

When ASN is working you see the splash screen and then nearly instantly the main screen pops up, "Downloading Weather" appears in the lower right, and 10-15 seconds later the program reports "Idle" and you're good to go. On the other hand, you know right away that there's a problem because when booting ASN you briefly see the splash screen, then nothing until about 3-4 minutes later when the main screen appears and "Downloading Weather" displays in the lower right and simply stays there forever. There was a hotfix released on April 7 that was supposed to deal with the ASN problem, and promises were made about upgrading their server architecture to handle loads. Yet once again it's taking a very long time (minimum 10 minutes if it finishes at all) for each wx download. It's gotten so frustrating that I've reverted to AS2012 which no one who has puchased ASN should have to do.

I'm generally a very patient guy, but come on HiFi, when are these server problems going to be fixed?

I would have posted this over on the HiFiTech official forum, but, well, as I said, that's not working either ... again. :mad:

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I was having very similar issues a while back and I was about to toss ASN but after some digging around, I noticed that if I disabled anti-phishing on my anti-virus application (BitDefender) all my connection issues were resolved. Now, having said all this, I don't know if you have an AV or firewall applications in place so it's just a suggestion to look into until you can get a ticket logged with HiFi.

If you need a hand keep posting here.

M

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I noticed that if I disabled anti-phishing on my anti-virus application (BitDefender) all my connection issues were resolved.

Mike,

Thanks for the suggestion, however it's become pretty clear over the past month (from the number of posts to various threads dealing with this ongoing issue) that many people are experiencing the issue, and HiFi has acknowledged that it's theirs to fix. The only anti-virus app on my.rig is Avast, and it has never given me any problems connecting to a service. In fact, when the ASN servers are working, the connection is immediate and the wx downloads are near instantaneous - much faster even than AS2012. So, it's baffling why HIFi has run into this mess with their ASN servers because AS2012 worked so darn well.

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In the month since I purchased ASN I've done about 8 flights. Preparing for 5 of them ASN has had problems downloading weather and at the same time the HiFiTech forums can't be reached. You may think this is coincidental but it's not. Each time ASN can't deliver wx information the HiFiTech forums are also unreachable. So there's nowhere to report problems except here. Today I've been trying to get a flight going for the past 3 hours and ASN is just plain stuck.

When ASN is working you see the splash screen and then nearly instantly the main screen pops up, "Downloading Weather" appears in the lower right, and 10-15 seconds later the program reports "Idle" and you're good to go. On the other hand, you know right away that there's a problem because when booting ASN you briefly see the splash screen, then nothing until about 3-4 minutes later when the main screen appears and "Downloading Weather" displays in the lower right and simply stays there forever. There was a hotfix released on April 7 that was supposed to deal with the ASN problem, and promises were made about upgrading their server architecture to handle loads. Yet once again it's taking a very long time (minimum 10 minutes if it finishes at all) for each wx download. It's gotten so frustrating that I've reverted to AS2012 which no one who has puchased ASN should have to do.

I'm generally a very patient guy, but come on HiFi, when are these server problems going to be fixed?

I would have posted this over on the HiFiTech official forum, but, well, as I said, that's not working either ... again. :mad:

This is happening to me today as well.

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I've had the same issue here. Just bought ASN through the SimMarket, but the product refuses to activate whilst the website and forums are down. Additionally can't seek report (or even find an email address to complain to) because of the same issue. Given my satisfaction with previous HiFi products, this seemingly catastrophic failure is greatly disappointing.

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WOW. I didn't realize the issue was that wide spread. I've been off and on ASN all day and haven't had a hiccup yet (I think I may have just jinxed myself now :lol:). Hopefully HiFi get's this sorted out pretty soon.

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yah i was surprised to hear about it too. must be bad luck with timing for the guys seeing it, i think i've maybe seen it down maybe 1 or 2 times since december and i fly usually at least a few times a week. i did a couple flights today without any issues although i did notice that adding a PIREP took much longer than usual.

it does illustrate the challenges of supporting software that relies on server uptimes, when it works it's fine but when it doesn't it's super frustrating for users.

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Based on reports in other threads when the ASN service has gone offline, it appears that the problem is localized. Most of the reports of service drop seem to come from the Americas. But there's also the odd service-down report from the Netherlands, Australia and other parts of the world, while at the same time someone connecting from California has no problem. I suppose this is what the HiFiTech team is trying to sort out. It probably has a lot to do with how your ISP routes you to the ASN servers. So, you may not have problems, but someone up the street from you with a different ISP may be unable to connect.

Today I did a beautiful flight from Dublin to Stockholm with perfect ASN performance. Yesterday I couldn't connect at all until late at night.

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Based on reports in other threads when the ASN service has gone offline, it appears that the problem is localized. Most of the reports of service drop seem to come from the Americas. But there's also the odd service-down report from the Netherlands, Australia and other parts of the world, while at the same time someone connecting from California has no problem. I suppose this is what the HiFiTech team is trying to sort out. It probably has a lot to do with how your ISP routes you to the ASN servers. So, you may not have problems, but someone up the street from you with a different ISP may be unable to connect.

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